client: Valspar, Inc.
employer: MSR Design (formerly MS&R, Ltd) Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle
role: Project Architect | Designer | BIM
year: 2007
renderings: mrlw
images: Lara Swimmer + various sources
As a continuation of a series of projects with Valspar, Inc. to renovate their existing headquarters and research facilities – the company elected to relocate its main offices to the Ameriprise Building in downtown Minneapolis.
The main offices moved to (2) 53,600 SF floors, with a future option for expansion to an additional floor should new products and affiliates come on line.
At the outset of the project, the intent was to serve as a showcase of as many of their products & coatings as possible to celebrate their position on the global stage.
The existing Valspar building, at the south entrance to Minneapolis was the home of a Busa mural across its facade.
Moving from their current maze of disjointed offices into a blank grey-box of space which would include a more open cubicle field left us with a problem to solve.
How do you solve a problem of knowing where you are in this massive space, when the ‘design standard’ is a sea of cubicles?
By treating this field of concrete and spray foam as a garden. Using the principles of path, edges, and destination – we created an environment within the restrictions of the tenant development guidelines – and found some rules to break to gain a little placemaking into 107,000 SF.
In the overall theme of dynamics and color, overlaid on the sense of place – we developed a base color scheme for each area.
The color scheme flips, based on whether or not you’re on Level 09 or Level 10, and reflects a primary color based on which side of the core spaces that you’re on.
Entry to the space is where we begin the journey and to materially tell the tale of Valspar as a company.
To that end, the experience needed color and reflect the spirit of the company’s history. To that end – we began in the elevator lobby, and drawing on the mural for inspiration – surrounded the visitor with color.
The reception area begins a design language, showcasing wood finishes, glass treatments, paints, and the seating carried a display wall for media presentations.
The recessed lighting hints at the direction of traffic pattern throughout the spaces.
Using the garden approach, the transition areas between the field areas (cubicles) was referred to as the ‘bridge’ and utilized for impromptu group gathers, lunches & collaborative work areas on each level.
On level 09 we even took advantage of the raised floor and created a lowered seating area in a portion of the space, utilizing the upper portion for the IT cabling connecting the workspaces.
Bridge 10, on the main level is the path that leads to the CEO office. Along this path, and as part of the tour, it features a ‘world domination wall’ depicting the locations of Valspar manufacturing facilities around the country.
We used a suspension cable system paired with placards that were held over a vinyl cut map of the world.
The booths, using a corn-crib spaced wall became a fast favorite of the staff working there. They were given names by the staff.
In the vast landscape that was the workspaces, natural edges emerged, and the hierarchy of ‘destination spaces’ were filtered. Each zone needed meeting spaces.
After combing thru the tenant development agreement – all the things that were specified as development standards – never mentioned spaces were required to be orthogonal. In order to stand out in the landscape – they were rotated off-grid.
In the hierarchy of the work spaces, there’s an obvious split between those with walls, and those without.
The color scheme for the offices was to coat them in the same color as the lining of a Valspar paint can – accenting one wall with a ‘draw down’ of a color, taken from the color-coded area in which the office was located. Red, Green, Orange or Blue respectively.
Special care and a little color customization was done to the field of systems furniture and additional accents included throughout the office spaces.
Given the existing infrastructure, there was also a building standard prescribed way to finish out the columns surrounding the core spaces that we augmented a little to reflect the color scheme, and take advantage of a little forced perspective while an employee would be walking these hard edges.
The color swatch that we’ve all seen a million times.
The final colors specified for this project exceeded 130, the finishes were entirely Valspar, and we had established a hierarchy of spaces that held to a concept that the client loved.
With the help of renderings and visualizations – we’d told the story, well before the space was occupied – and it met every expectation that they had.
I had a chance to speak to clients sometime later about how they enjoyed their new offices – and they mentioned that because of the renderings and selections in the process – on day one the spaces already felt familiar as they’d seen them already for months during design.
The entire project was stick-built autocad modeling and renderings – and there wasn’t a stronger case to be made for the cross-over to BIM development and the benefits of an accurate 3D modeled environment during the design phase.
At the time of this writing, Sherwin-Williams has acquired Valspar – and I cannot speak to whether or not the space has been altered since its completion, but the group of people that I worked with on this project made it a joy to develop their new work space.
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